


On the Diversity of the Hemospectrum: A Thesis by Porrim Maryam

by f_imaginings



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Beforan Empire AU, Beforus, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Quadrant Confusion, Quadrant Vacillation, Science, Slow Build, Social Justice, Stockholm Syndrome, dystopian government, political activism, political prisoner, utopian society
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 04:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f_imaginings/pseuds/f_imaginings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”<br/>― Troll Albert Einstein</p>
<p>In which a Jadeblood conducts scientific experiments regarding brood caverns, a Mutant leaks government conspiracies over his bubblr account and subsequently gets arrested, a Tealblood conducts her judiciary practice in opposition to the law makers, and a Blueblood takes the bureaucratic high road and makes things terrible for everyone else.  Featuring three calignous dalliances, two functional redroms, several unhealthy quadrantal relationships, one vow of celibacy, pale/pitch vaccilation and a clusterfuck of heartbreak. Oh, and science.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Diversity of the Hemospectrum: A Thesis by Porrim Maryam

 

**Many emails and many ultimatums**

**For the Good of the Empire**

_Letter in response to: Subject: Maryam, Porrim_  
Regarding- Research Stipend into EXP413a  
Cc, Bb/ Executor Markix, Trahan. 

_Regarding your request for additional funding for Experiment 413a we regret to inform you that the embassy cannot allocate the funds to your research at this specific point in time. However continued work on your thesis is appreciated and when said thesis is presented to the committee for perusal we will revaluate your request for additional stipends._

_Regards and Well Wishes Under the Empress,_

_Dept of Biological Research and Development  
Sponsored by the Benevolence of the Beforan Empire_

 

How incredibly dull. Not entirely unexpected.

* * *

 

Two perigrees later she submits the request for stipend again, this time with thesis attached.

The response was as expected.

 

_Letter of Confirmation to: Subject: Maryam, Porrim_  
Regarding- Delivery of Thesis  
Cc, Bb/ Executor Markix, Trahan. 

_The embassy has received your thesis on the Evolutionary Development of Grubs; from Slurry to Wrigglers and it is awaiting financial approval. We appreciate your dedication to your work with the Alternian brooding caverns and fully support your continued accommodation at the Alternian Research Outpost. The embassy will contact you with the details of the progression of your thesis within the next perigree._

_Regards and Well Wishes Under the Empress,_

_Dept of Biological Research and Development  
Sponsored by the Benevolence of the Beforan Empire_

 

Entirely unfazed by the lacklustre response from the Embassy, Porrim closed the windows on her husktop and went back to her work station in the lab. She moved several blood samples from the incubator and set the centrifuge spinning. Humming as she checked on the lusii video feed, she tapped her nails against the touch pad surface of her log board.

The Embassy’s delayed responses were all too telling. Porrim hadn’t the patience nor ambition to jump through the endless political hoops negotiating with Executor Markix entailed. He has never been pleased with her disdain for the ritual of the system. Porrim has never been pleased with Executor Markix’s bulge size, so she figures they are even.

The Embassy was delaying Porrim’s research grant for the most inane of bureaucratic reasons. At this point it was simply religious devotion to the art of paperwork that was keeping her research from advancing. She didn’t miss the implied demand that she stay at her post, continue her work. It’s not as though she had any other plans, though her next home leave wasn’t for another 8 perigrees. Still, a little vacation from the wasteland that is the Beforan Empirical Alternian Outpost for Genetic Research would be very _very_ refreshing.

Porrim was posted in a solitary research laboratory in the middle of the desert plains of Alternia. With the expansion of the Great and Benevolent Beforan Empire, the colony on Alternia was still as yet unexplored in terms of potential. Originally Beforan settlers had lived in the desert and for two short sweeps made the research outpost the centre of a bustling community of scientists. That was before they realised, perhaps two sweeps too late, exactly how utterly idiotic it was to live in the most barren, dangerous shithole on the wider barbaric landscape that was Alternia.

Colonists faced native rebellions, wild swaths of violence, uncivilised behaviours. That was sweeps ago, however, after the Great Cull for Civilisation took place. Alternia was no less of a barren shithole now, but at least the indigenous people stopped killing their fellow troll. While several biologists and researchers have been stationed across Alternia for sweeps, Porrim is the only researcher in her station, and that, she thinks, is possibly one of the cruellest culling methods she has seen to date.

Granted she caused quite a scandal in her last research post, and her higher schoolfeeding years on Beforus were certainly turbulent, especially when she decided to specialise in the division of genetic research. Higher schoolfeeding was supposed to be a time to experiment though. If you couldn’t experiment in your experimental research group, where could you experiment?

To be quite bluntly honest, she was somewhat of a quadrant fiend, vacillating in every relationship, flitting from partner to partner. She often recalled herself fondly remarking on the ‘well-greased doors to her quads’ but after higher schoolfeeding she had to put away such childish things.

For the good of the empire.

For science.

And for other unrepentant conceptual bullshit that she simply hadn’t time for.

Porrim was a researcher. She was invested in the facts, and the fact was that isolated as she was in the desert research outpost of barren Alternia there was not a troll for miles who could possibly fall into her quadrants. Not a troll past embryonic development in any case.

 

She moved from the lusii video feed over to the compudeck, punching the codes that would increase the humidity in the brooding caverns. The few lusii that ambled across the span of the security feed perked up, sniffing the air and lumbering over to lick the moss that grew on the cavern walls. Porrim plugged another set of codes into the compudeck, misting the caverns with a mild sedative. Slowly the lusii turned sluggish, scraping soil into piles and settling atop of them. They wouldn’t be sleeping, but they would be slow enough to allow her to visit the hatch nest, to take sample scrapings. Lusii were easy enough to handle, it was getting close to the Mother Grub that was difficult.

Her daily routine was not unfulfilling. Porrim did not despise her job. She was not entirely unhappy.

She had the rare opportunity to bear witness to the intimate details of the miracle of life on a daily basis; and while that was the tacky response she gave at University Galas and scientific award ceremonies, the real boon was that she was the only scientist in the empire who has been in the presence of a Mother Grub and lived to tell the tale.

Her success with the Mother Grub was due to a unique genetic quirk rendering her invaluable to the Empire. She was the only rainbow drinker employed in the field of genetic research. That’s not to say Porrim was not skilled. She was the best researcher in her field. Her extra senses enabled her to make more astute observations about the blood samples she studied. Her field of research certainly provided special dispensation for her unique ‘handicap’.

Porrim snagged her samples kit from the desk, clicking the grey metal case shut. She shucked off her lab coat, hanging it on a hook by the door, and grabbed the clear plastic bio-haz suit, pulling the sleeves on as she carded herself out of the lab and made her way down the passages to the caverns.

While she was the only Rainbow Drinker, there were other jadebloods employed in the field of genetic research. Most jadebloods worked almost exclusively for governmental culling agencies, and the department of culling was one of the empire’s largest welfare sectors. She had never wanted to work in the cavernous offices of the government’s culling agency though, yet somehow she was still regulated to working with grubs, after all these sweeps.

Hemo-research was essential in nearly every medical and developmental field. Every published work Porrim sent out was referred to in nearly every medical and scientific journal in the Beforan Empire. Her thesis was entirely sound. She was not expecting much of a hold up with the assessment of it; if anything, her thesis should be fast tracked through the system, given the extraordinary nature of the content. But for the fact that the Department of Biological Research and Development were sticklers for paperwork, Porrim’s research would already be out, improving lives.

She checked her bio-haz suit, sealing all the vaccu-flaps and ensuring her horns were completely encased. Before swiping her card through the doorway to the Mother Grub’s cavern she focused on relaxing, and sure enough, her skin began to shine with the same luminescence that filled the cave walls. While Porrim was decidedly less toxic than the luminescent bacteria that grew on the walls, she could not take any chances, and checked her bio-haz suit one last time before walking through to the chamber ahead.

The Mother Grub had been particularly melancholic as of late, a by-product, perhaps of Porrim’s regular intrusions and attempts to snatch samples of her slurry. Retrieving slurry from the Mother Grub was essential for furthering the next part of Porrim’s thesis. She was hoping to find the missing link between Mother Grub genetic coding and Troll DNA. Technically due to the nature of troll-birth every living troll bears some partition of the Mother Grub’s genes but no scientist ever had the opportunity to procure samples of the Mother Grub’s slurry, untainted by the incestuous mix of other trolls.

Porrim’s research sought to explain the link between the Mother Grub and the plethora of mutations that stemmed from her base genetics. To Porrim’s knowledge there was no one Mother Grub responsible for producing only mutants, and Mother Grub’s birthed wrigglers of all blood castes and hues, so the diversity of the spectrum must be resultant of something special and altogether unknown that the Mother Grub must be responsible for. At the moment scientific theory surrounding the Mother Grub’s role in the diversity of the Hemospectrum was heavily reliant on assumptions. If Porrim were able to find some concrete proof of mutative strains in the Mother Grub’s DNA she may be able to finally crack the code on the diversity of the species.

The road to result was slow though. While historical occurrences of scientific contact with the Mother Grub were notably scarce (almost non-existent), Porrim, as the ground-breaking researcher to cross historical barriers with the Mother Grub, still has yet to establish actual physical contact with the Mother Grub currently dwelling within the custody of the caverns at Alternian Outpost 12. That, coupled with the fact that the Mother Grub was still spitting poison at her each time she entered for a check-up combined to be rather disheartening.

 

The Mother Grub hung surrounded by a strong cocoon of mucus on the far wall of the cavern, bloated and snarling the moment Porrim’s glowing form set foot in her territory.

A Virgin Mother Grub bore the semblance of a more placid, benign creature, but a Mother Grub swollen with young was what wrigglers had day terrors about.

Mandibles clicking, the hollow rattling hiss of the creature drawing in breath gave Porrim the split second warning needed to dodge the spittle of acid the Mother Grub projectiled in her direction. The venomous acid sizzled on the cavern wall behind her before hardening, smooth and shiny. The crackling of the Mother Grub clicking her mandibles in a display of dominance while gurgling another shot of venom made it clear to Porrim that today would not be a successful day of recon.

Flinching away from the next sizzle of acid Porrim closed her eyes, trying to focus on brightening the luminescence of her skin. A Mother Grub’s instinctual fascination with light sources helped the grub settle, and the brighter Porrim’s skin glowed the calmer the Mother Grub became.

Opening her eyes when the intimidating gurgle subsided into a sporadic clicking, Porrim could see the Mother Grub raking the pointed grooves of its horns against the cavern wall, gouging tracks in the stone. The mandibles dripped with residual venom, but the Mother Grub, now less inclined to spit at Porrim, drew thin segmented limbs repetitively over her mandibles, collecting the venom on the side of her sleek shiny legs and smoothing the secretion over the cocoon of mucus the Mother Grub had been building around her abdomen.

Porrim chanced a few steps forward, and slowly raised one of the micro-cameras to the cavern wall. The Mother Grub clicked sternly for a moment, before returning to the task of solidifying her cocoon, vestigial wings fluttering aimlessly. Mother Grubs lost the ability to fly when impregnated, so weighted by the slurry of a brood as they were. The small furred wings, so pragmatic for Virginal Mother Grubs or those Grubs not yet in season, became little more than decorative when the Mother Grub settled in for a season of spawning.

Three micro-cameras later and Porrim’s bravery was spent.

Intruding on the Mother Grub’s cavern was always a tense experience simply due to the physical danger the colossal creature posed. There was something else unnerving about the Mother Grub’s proximity. A dread unease that settled somewhere around her spine and crept with the same unease Porrim felt as a little wriggler, walking past the juggalo church every week for schoolfeeding.

Green tinged sweat pooling on her collarbone, her breath forming condensation on the plastic screen of her bio-haz suit, Porrim backed out of the cavern to the passageway door, the Mother Grub clicking its oversized pincers at her expectantly.

She had no desire to linger.

* * *

The embassy expected punctuality from all applicants. However, it was fine for them to take over a perigree to answer a simple email.

Porrim grew impatient, considered calling in her case lawyer to hurry the permissions for her next experiment, though perhaps such extremes were not necessary. Science waits for no troll, but apparently research protocols needed political approval before the go ahead was given.

Logging out of the laboratory for the day and loping out to lounge around the common areas of the facility Porrim reached into the refrigerating unit, taking out a sachet of bronze chilled, picking at the safety straw provided. She did not like the safety straws, she much preferred sinking her teeth into what she would be drinking from, but the sachets tasted like plastic and so reluctantly Porrim punctured the bag of blood with the flimsy safety straw and settled down on the reclining couch, slurping the coppery liquid from within.

 

The provisions at the facility were catered to Porrim’s needs specifically. There were some rations packets and packaged meals with dubious use-by dates for the previous inhabitants of the facility but Porrim’s only sustenance was delivered weekly by trans-portal from the main grocery ship of the Beforan Empire.

Having a single researcher at the Alternian facility was pragmatic in terms of provisions, but the cost of housing Porrim in the desert faculty was even cheaper given the only food or drink she needed to survive was donated blood samples.

She was studying blood anyway, studying blood and drinking blood and feeling blood between her fangs. There was plenty of blood in the facility. Personally Porrim would rather not drink the samples if possible, and the thought of tippling from the test tubes was at once both unappealing and deliciously taboo.

She reached for the televisual ticker and switched on the Troll Visualiser, slurping idly at her bronze brew. Ticking through channels and finding little of interest on the TV, Porrim paused on weather reports, quadrant dramas, the stock markets, several drab documentaries and one very dull program about how grubloaf was made. Amusement from such luxuries as the TV and the multitude of other technologies scattered about the facility only waned with time. While the technology in the research facility far surpassed what primitive technology was supplied to the indigenous inhabitants of Alternia, after sweeps of the same routine Porrim grew unimpressed and terribly bored of it all. Watching the TV felt remarkably like switching her pan off, a very unsettling feeling, and so she ticked briefly to the news, wishing facetiously for some measure of disaster in the empire, just to have something to focus on.

The news, according to the Beforan Empire, was a free press, but the free media was in fact very boring, and altogether too happy for the topic at hand. Reporting on trolls was a gritty ordeal – Porrim should know, she wrote reports on troll biology weekly. The Beforan Broadcast news was so passively benign and placid that it hardly seemed to report on anything eventful at all.

She chased the straw around with her tongue, pausing on ‘current events’ to see if there was anything even remotely fascinating, current, or eventful about it. There were increases in the culling budget, some anti-casteist activist was standing trial for crimes against the state, and a rather cute barkbeast was riding a skateboard.

 

The trial story had been in the media for a while now, over the last perigree or so.

A lowblooded cull was unsatisfied with the culling system and hacked into government databases, leaking falsified documents claiming the culling budget was imperialistic philandering.

There had been all sorts of reports about him, that he was faking mutations to gain sympathy, that his pan was addled and that his benefactors faced this sort of behaviour before, that he suffered some sort of perversion of quadrants and either forced his quadrants on everyone, or he didn’t have a bulge. They were never quite clear on that last one.

Troll Joanee Rivers was certain of the ‘no bulge’ theory. Porrim took Troll Joanee Rivers with a pinch of salt. The woman was caustic about most public figures when it came to celebrity gossip, and unless she slept with the mutant cull, one would doubt the veracity of her statements.

Porrim just watched the whole affair with a detached sort of bemusement. The media was rather unclear on the details, for all their exclusive and verified results. The only conclusion Porrim drew about the case and the troll in question was that he had very dubious taste in sweaters, and kept being talked over.

“I will emphasise; there is corruption in the legal system. The chance that I will receive a fair trial in this matter is very slim. I say this not to draw conclusions or to paint myself a martyr but when the time comes and the truth outs those who seek an actual explanation will know where to start looking!”

The troll on the TV had a very nice voice, very persuasive and intelligent sounding. Porrim could hardly see the drooling mania reported, perhaps he has lucid moments. A chaperone at this point in the broadcast pushed the reporter’s microphones away, ushering the lowblood inside, a gentle hand on his back. A spokestroll addressed the cameras.

“Please, no more upsetting questions for Mr Vantas. He is rather fragile.”

In the background of the shot the troll in question looked incredibly affronted by this.

At times like this the Beforan newscast served just as much mindless entertainment and unsubstantiated drama as the other three hundred and seventy two channels available.

Ticking through the channels again at brisk pace Porrim paused on her favourite animated cartoon from her wrigglerhood. The familiar theme from ‘Squiddles’ sounded as she slurped the bronze blood and checked her email on the palmhusk, adorable tentacled creatures celebrating twelfth perigree’s eve on the screen above.

She had several emails of interest.

Some lovely emails from friends, there must be about forty assembled pictures from Latula and Mituna’s handfasting, one rather humorous tableau involving the rings, false moustaches and about a whole bathtub of soporifics. Latula was her lawyer, and occasional quad-mate. They’ve had a few torrid pitch flings in the past, just a bit of fun, nothing out of the ordinary, but the bond Latula had with her matesprit Mituna was the stuff of daytime TV. It was a foregone conclusion that they would get handfasted someday, the only surprising thing about it was that they waited four sweeps to get there.

Looking back to her palmhusk there was the usual chain email from Meulin, cute meowbeasts everywhere. There were links to several ‘animes of import yo’ from Rufioh, god knows where he finds the time to discover these shows.

At the end of the list, blinking unread and foreboding, official embassy tagline _RE: Thesis Topic and Research Stipend into EXP413b_ niggling government sanctioned doubt into her pan, was the final email for Porrim to read.

_Letter of Assignation to: Subject: Maryam, Porrim_

_Regarding- Thesis Topic and Research Stipend into EXP413b_

_Cc, Bb/ Executor Markix, Trahan._

_The embassy has received your thesis on the Evolutionary Development of Grubs; from Slurry to Wrigglers and it was deemed appropriate for publication. However, the embassy, due to the allocation of boon for your research grant, expect a re-write of your thesis on the actual topic of research for EXP413b, the government sanctioned research. Beforus appreciates your dedication to your work with the Alternian brooding caverns, and your thesis on Grub Development will be published in this perigree’s scientific discourse issue of Beforan Discovery. The continuing research into EXP413b is to be stressed as your priority for the next several sweeps, and further progress on EXP413b is to be expected by the 12 th perigree’s review. If no progress on the experiment is documented funding shall be withdrawn from your experiment. The embassy will contact you with the details of the progression of your thesis within the next perigree._

_Regards and Well Wishes Under the Empress,_

_Dept of Biological Research and Development_

_Sponsored by the Benevolence of the Beforan Empire_

 

Porrim growled, low and husky, and hurled her palmhusk into the pillows on the couch.

“Stupid bureaucrats, I can’t do the research without the grant! I need the grant to do the research. There's no research without grant! I can’t believe this, how stupid do you have to be?”

Talking to herself has almost become acceptable. The echo of her voice and the silence of the facility was less unsettling after so many sweeps. It provided the illusion of company, just to hear something that wasn’t artificial.

“That’s it. Screw this. This is the last fucking straw.”

Storming over to the transportaliser Porrim punched in the codes to be beamed shipside to the Embassy’s orbiting facility. The transportaliser buzzed, an error code flashing up on the screen.

[SUBJECT PENDING OFF PLANET EXCURSION FORMS]

Hissing with frustration Porrim punched the override emergency codes. The system flashed error codes once more, detecting no emergency. She roared.

That was about when Porrim plunged her hand into the wall of the nutritionblock, a handful of snapped wires her trophy. Circuits sparking, singeing the wall, the facility’s alarms began to whirr, detecting electrical malfunctioning.

Pushing the buttons for emergency shipside transportaliser protocols, Porrim stood on the circular pad of the trans-portal and was encased in the pure white light as her molecules were transported from the Beforan Empirical Alternian Outpost for Genetic Research to the receiving trans-portal dock of the Orbital Ship Embassy.

Molecular transportation successful, Porrim blazed out of the receiving dock, bypassing the administrative deck to head straight towards the executive wing.

She had been pushed too far.

 

It was Executor hunting time. 

**Author's Note:**

> I will confirm that this will be a) really bloody long and b) Porkri (but complicated as heck Porkri). And I know Kankri hasn't even been properly introduced yet, but next chapter, I promise. Tags will be updated as it goes, and updates may be very sporadic too. I did the illustrations as well, but I have a dodgy tablet, so there may not be heaps of illustrations per chapter.   
> Anywho, I hope you've enjoyed the first chapter, and let me know your thoughts and if you're keen to see more.


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